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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The 'Warrior Tradition' and Zimbabwe's Historical (Re)Construction
| Panel |
88. Cultural construction of the nation: which way Africa?
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| Paper ID | 788 |
| Author(s) |
Mazarire, Gerald C.
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Zimbabwe celebrated its 27th year as a sovereign nation amidst a lot of introspection over the nature of the state. The war of liberation/chimurenga features prominently in this debate mainly due to the manner in which it has been memorialized by Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu Pf as a resource for legitimacy and from which is derived their moral high ground to rule the country, more acutely so in the recent past. With it comes a specific nationalism peculiarly patriarchal and militarized but broadly using images drawn from the chimurenga not as an event in itself but as an ongoing process and an immortal struggle. This paper is an attempt at a survey of the discourses on the chimurenga, both popular and academic, which argues that they are clear continuities in its representation in these years because nationalists and war veterans have successfully personified the struggle as a generation. Yet also this has increasingly come to be questioned as it becomes visibly clear that none of these identities is a genetic concept i.e. a war veteran does not give birth to another war veteran nor does a nationalist. Zimbabwe is having to confront the challenges of the legacies of a passing warrior generation which desperately needs to leave behind answers to current problems rather than be buried with their past achievements. The so-called 'bornfree' Zimbabwean simply does not eat the war! This is largely the context in which the democratic debate is being fought over in Zimbabwe and it can only be comprehended with a thorough understating of the various narratives on and about this war. |
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